Summary so far
We will shortly be closing this live blog. In the meantime, here is a quick recap of the past few hours.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who ended the cold war, died in Moscow aged 91. “Mikhail Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease,” Interfax news agency cited Russia’s Central Clinical Hospital as saying in a statement. He will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass news agency, citing a source familiar with the family’s wishes.
The Russian president Vladimir Putin expresses his deepest condolences, a Kremlin spokesman told the Interfax news agency.
Gorbachev’s political legacy was destroyed by Putin as the era of detente and arms control between Washington and Moscow is replaced by a bloody war in Ukraine, Julian Borger writes.
The former Soviet leader was celebrated across liberal democracies but reviled and unpopular in Russia, Pjotr Sauer writes. His policy of ‘glasnost’, or openness, gave Russians previously unthinkable levels of freedom, but for many, his rule will be remembered by the dramatic plunge in living standards that followed.
Gorbachev, a champion of arms control, opposed Putin’s war in Ukraine. He issued a statement through his foundation in the days after Russia’s invasion calling for “an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations”. “There is nothing more precious in the world than human lives,” he added.
A flood of tributes from across the world poured in for the man described as “one of the greatest figures of the 20th century” and universally credited with ending the cold war.
US President Joe Biden described Gorbachev as a man of “remarkable vision” who led his country on the path to reform. “These were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it,” Biden said in a statement. “The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”
António Guterres, general secretary of the United Nations, said Gorbachev was a “one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history”. “The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace. I’m deeply saddened by his passing,” he tweeted.
French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened a path to freedom for Russians”. “His commitment to peace in Europe changed our common history,” he added.
Boris Johnson, the outgoing British prime minister, said he “always admired the courage and integrity he showed in bringing the cold war to a peaceful conclusion”.
Gorbachev was the most important world figure of the last quarter of the 20th century. Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration. Read his full obituary here.
In a 2011 interview with the Guardian, Gorbachev said he should have resigned in April 1991 and formed a democratic party of reform, adding he regretted “the fact that I went on too long in trying to reform the Communist party”.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev “changed the world for the better”, in a tribute message posted on Wednesday afternoon following the death of the last leader of the Soviet Union.
He freed the nations of Eastern Europe from the prison of Soviet rule, and helped bring an end to the Cold War,” Albanese wrote in a message posted to Facebook, calling Gorbachev “a man of warmth, hope, resolve and enormous courage”.
With his death we have lost one of the true giants of the 20th century.”
Obituary
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the most important world figure of the last quarter of the 20th century. Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration. It was not the objective he set himself when he was elected general secretary of the Soviet Communist party in March 1985, nor did he predict or plan the way the cold war would end, the haemorrhaging of the Communist party, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany or the break-up of the Soviet Union itself.
Like other great reformers in history, he ended up in isolation, condemned by some for doing too much and by others for doing too little. For the world beyond Russia, his great service lay in allowing the cold war to come to an end. It did not end as he had hoped – in a grand reconciliation between east and west. Indeed, in retirement he criticised western leaders for expanding Nato to take in several of the former Soviet republics, which he thought was unnecessary and provocative. Inside Russia, his economic reforms failed, though not as catastrophically as those that followed under Yeltsin.
Yeltsin’s circle blamed Gorbachev for the miserable legacy they inherited. Gorbachev, for his part, blamed the legacy of Stalinism for the situation he took over. He will be remembered as the man who consigned the one-party system to oblivion and gave Russians room to breathe. Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin treated Gorbachev with respect despite Gorbachev’s occasional criticisms of the slide back towards authoritarianism.
Read the full obituary below.
Mikhail Gorbachev – a life in pictures.
Mikhail Gorbachev has been described as “one of the greatest figures of the 20th century” in a flood of tributes from across the world to the man universally credited with ending the cold war.
There was gushing praise for the former Soviet president from past and present western leaders, political commentators, academics, historians and celebrities after his death in Russia on Tuesday night aged 91.
Read a more comprehensive rundown of the tributes that have poured in for the “one-of-a kind” Soviet leader in our story below.
European leaders have also paid tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev today.
French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened a path to freedom for Russians”.
“His commitment to peace in Europe changed our common history,” he added.
Mes condoléances pour la disparition de Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, homme de paix dont les choix ont ouvert un chemin de liberté aux Russes. Son engagement pour la paix en Europe a changé notre histoire commune.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 30, 2022
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the former Soviet leader “shaped the rapprochement between east and west after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe”.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte lamented the loss of a “a courageous reformer with immense influence on history”.
Gorbachev won massive support among ordinary people in the west and hoped to fundamentally change the mindset of Russia, a country that had never experienced democracy, having gone straight from Romanov to Bolshevik dictatorships.
In the wake of Gorbachev’s death, many are remembering the former Soviet leaders infamous 1997 Pizza Hut commercial.
In the advertisement, a fight over Gorbachev’s legacy ensues between a group of customers.
“Because of him, we have economic confusion!” one man says. “Because of him, we have opportunity!” another adds.
“Because of him, we have many things … like Pizza Hut!” a woman concludes.
Mikhail Gorbachev's infamous Pizza Hut ad lives on https://t.co/hggqkcIOqT
— Samantha Lock (@Samantha__Lock) August 31, 2022
Gorbachev: a divisive figure loved abroad but loathed at home
Despite being celebrated across liberal democracies, the former Soviet leader was reviled and unpopular in Russia, Pjotr Sauer writes for us today.
Until his very last day, Mikhail Gorbachev lived in a dual reality – loved and celebrated in Washington, Paris and London, but reviled by large numbers of Russians who never forgave him for the turbulence that his reforms unleashed.
His policy of ‘glasnost’, or openness, gave Russians previously unthinkable levels of freedom, but for many, his rule will be remembered by the dramatic plunge in living standards that followed.
Others, haunted by Soviet nostalgia, saw Gorbachev as the destroyer of their empire and blame his policies for emboldening nationalists who successfully pushed for independence in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and elsewhere across the former Soviet bloc.
Read the full story below.
Gorbachev issued a warning against Putin’s leadership in 2011 for what was to come.
It’s perhaps understandable that during the initial phase he used certain authoritarian methods in his leadership, but using authoritarian methods as a policy for the future – that I think is wrong. I think that’s a mistake,” he said at a public event in the US.
Gorbachev later spoke to the BBC in 2013 about how his relationship with Putin had “soured” since the former KGB agent took office in 2000.
“He sometimes loses his temper,” he said, referring to a comment where Putin had warned that Gorbachev should watch his tongue when making public criticism of his regime.
I get the feeling he’s very tense and worried … Not everything is going well. I think he should change his style and make changes to his regime.”
Condemning newly enacted laws cracking down on government criticism, Gorbachev said: “For goodness sake, you should not be afraid of your own people.”
He also criticised Putin’s inner circle, saying it was full of “thieves and corrupt officials”.
Updated
A journalist who had remained close to Gorbachev said in July that the former Soviet leader was “upset” by what he saw in Ukraine.
“Gorbachev’s reforms – political, not economic – were all destroyed,” the journalist Alexei Venediktov, the editor of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, told the Russian Forbes magazine. “Nilch, zero, ashes.”
Gorbachev former interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko, who works for the Gorbachev Centre thinktank, told Fox News two days before the invasion:
He always warned things could happen that could be very dangerous between Russia and Ukraine, but he always did what he could in order to bring those two nations closer together rather than see a continuation of this rift that we now see widening. So for him, emotionally, it is very tragic.”
What did Gorbachev think of Putin's war in Ukraine?
Gorbachev, a champion of arms control, issued a statement through his foundation in the days after Russia’s invasion calling for “an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations”.
In connection with Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, begun on February 24, we affirm the need for an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations.
There is nothing more precious in the world than human lives. Negotiations and dialogue on the basis of mutual respect and recognition of interests are the only possible way to resolve the most acute contradictions and problems. We support any efforts aimed at the resumption of negotiating process.”
Updated
How Gorbachev’s political legacy was destroyed by Putin
Mikhail Gorbachev lived long enough to see everything he had tried to achieve crumble or get blown up, Julian Borger writes for us today.
The era of detente and arms control between Washington and Moscow has been replaced by a bloody war in Ukraine in which US and Nato weaponry is being pitted against Russian forces with the accompanying risk of a direct clash between the nuclear superpowers by accident or miscalculation.
By the time Gorbachev stepped down at the end of 1991, the Nato-Soviet frontier was no longer a flashpoint. Nato pulled all but a few thousand troops back from the eastern flank, and the terrors of the cold war seemed consigned to history books and museums. In the wake of the Ukraine invasion in February, Nato has rushed troops eastwards, mobilising 40,000 troops under its direct command, with plans to put 300,000 on high alert.
Gorbachev was a champion of arms control and even discussed the potential elimination of nuclear weapons with Ronald Reagan at the Reykjavik summit in 1986. Now, the last remaining agreement between US and Russia limiting nuclear weapons is being corroded by Russia’s suspension of mutual inspections. Both countries are modernising their arsenals and Putin has made a point of threatening nuclear use.
Read the full story below.
Key Gorbachev quotes about the last Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was one of the most talked about people in the world. Here are some memorable quotes about him.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, BBC interview, December 14, 1984:
I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.”
Article from the Washington Post, November 1987:
Just now, thanks to charming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, his nicely dressed wife Raisa, and his glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), it is the flavour of the month. Hip boutiques are selling Lenin pins and hammer-and-sickle T-shirts. We’re giving Gorbachev approval ratings higher than those for all the Democratic candidates except Jesse Jackson. The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper, ran an ad for a Mrs Gorbachev look-alike contest...
What’s going on here? Only yesterday the Soviet Union was everything grim, gray, brutal and bureaucratic....
Now, even with the thick roster of protests planned around Gorbachev’s visit, the atmosphere is changing in one of those great lurches of national feeling that foreigners find both charming and frightening about America.”
US President Ronald Reagan, speech at Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987:
There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalisation: Come here to this gate!
Mr Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
US President George Bush, at press conference alongside Gorbachev after talks, 3 December, 1989:
For forty years, the Western alliance has stood together in the cause of freedom. And now, with reform under way in the Soviet Union, we stand at the threshold of a brand new era of US-Soviet relations... I am optimistic that as the west works patiently together and increasingly cooperates with the Soviet Union, we can realise a lasting peace and transform the east-west relationship to one of enduring cooperation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, congratulating Gorbachev on his 91st birthday, 2 March, 2022, as quoted by Tass:
You have lived a long, fulfilling life, and you’ve rightfully earned great prestige and recognition. It is gratifying that today your multifaceted work contributes to the implementation of much-needed social, educational, charitable projects, as well as to the development of international humanitarian cooperation.”
The Reagan Foundation and Institute said it “mourns the loss of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a man who once was a political adversary of Ronald Reagan’s who ended up becoming a friend. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Gorbachev family and the people of Russia”.
Updated
The Guardian’s former Moscow correspondent recalled in 2011 about how he learnt of the coup against Gorbachev in 1991.
Mark Stone, from Sky News, has tweeted this poignant image of Gorbachev with Ronald Reagan.
Here’s an image which nods to a time when the US / Russia relationship was easier… the unlikely rapport between the capitalist and the communist; two men who navigated two nations away from the brink, and through the Cold War.
— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) August 30, 2022
How things have changed. #gorbachev pic.twitter.com/YSoLpV19Eb
Updated
Jonathan Eyal, of the think-tank the Royal United Services Institute, said:
He [Gorbachev] didn’t believe that the Soviet Union was actually an empire in itself of nations that did not want to be shackled.
Like all Soviet leaders, and dare I say like Russian leaders today, he saw the Soviet Union as synonymous with Russia and he simply could not understand why nations wanted to be independent.
Updated
'He started historic transformations to benefit mankind' - Henry Kissinger
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said Gorbachev “performed great services” but was “not able to implement all of his visions”.
He told BBC’s Newsnight:
The people of eastern Europe and the German people, and in the end the Russian people, owe him a great debt of gratitude for the inspiration, for the courage in coming forward with these ideas of freedom.
Kissinger, after again acknowledging Gorbachev was unable to implement his full vision, added:
He will still be remembered in history as a man who started historic transformations that were to the benefit of mankind and to the Russian people.
Updated
'A one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history' - António Guterres
António Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, has described Gorbachev as a “towering leader”.
Mikhail Gorbachev was a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 30, 2022
The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace.
I’m deeply saddened by his passing. pic.twitter.com/giu2RHSjrQ
Updated
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour party in England, said Mikhail Gorbachev was “one of the great figures” of last century who will “forever be remembered”.
One of the great figures of the 20th Century, Mikhail Gorbachev’s pursuit of reform forged a path for diplomacy over conflict.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 30, 2022
He will forever be remembered as the last leader of the Soviet Union who had the courage and conviction to end the Cold War.
Updated
Peter Baker, from the New York Times, has shared this tribute.
James Baker, who negotiated the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War with Gorbachev, says, “History will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who steered his great nation towards democracy."
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) August 30, 2022
His first public remarks on the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, delivered on Russian television on 14 May 1986, 18 days after the explosion.
This is one more tolling of the bell, and a new terrible warning, that in the nuclear age what is needed is new political thinking and new policies.
Updated
Some notable quotes from Mikhail Gorbachev.
On meeting his wife Raisa (from an interview with US Vogue in 2013):
One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life.
Updated
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former governor of California, has tweeted this tribute and photograph of himself with Gorbachev.
There’s an old saying, “Never meet your heroes.” I think that’s some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard. Mikhail Gorbachev was one of my heroes, and it was an honor and a joy to meet him. I was unbelievably lucky to call him a friend. All of us can learn from his fantastic life. pic.twitter.com/All5suSke1
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) August 30, 2022
In a 2011 interview with the Guardian, Gorbachev was asked to name the things he most regretted. He replied:
The fact that I went on too long in trying to reform the Communist party.
He should have resigned in April 1991, he said, and formed a democratic party of reform since the Communists were putting the brakes on all the necessary changes.
His second regret, he said, is that he did not start to reform the Soviet Union and give more power to its 15 republics at an earlier stage.
Updated
'Without him, it would not have been possible to end cold war peacefully' – Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state, has posted a tribute on Twitter.
I am saddened to hear of the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev. He was a man who tried to deliver a better life for his people. His life was consequential because, without him and his courage, it would not have been possible to end the Cold War peacefully.
— Condoleezza Rice (@CondoleezzaRice) August 30, 2022
Updated
Gorbachev was remembered fondly in the west, where he was referred to affectionately by the nickname Gorby and best known for defusing US-Soviet nuclear tensions in the 1980s as well as bringing eastern Europe out from behind the Iron Curtain.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for negotiating a historic nuclear arms pact with the US president Ronald Reagan, and his decision to withhold the Soviet army when the Berlin Wall fell a year earlier was seen as key to preserving Cold War peace, AFP reports.
He was also championed in the west for spearheading reforms to achieve transparency and greater public discussion that hastened the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Updated
Boris Johnson 'admired Gorbachev's courage and integrity'
The UK’s outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson, said he is “saddened” to hear that Mikhail Gorbachev has died, in a “time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine”.
I'm saddened to hear of the death of Gorbachev.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) August 30, 2022
I always admired the courage & integrity he showed in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion.
In a time of Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all.
Updated
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said in the morning the Russian president would send a telegram with condolences to the relatives and friends of the statesman.
Updated
'A trusted and respected leader' – Ursula von der Leyen
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, has paid tribute on Twitter.
Mikhail Gorbachev was a trusted and respected leader. He played a crucial role to end the Cold War and bring down the Iron Curtain. It opened the way for a free Europe.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) August 30, 2022
This legacy is one we will not forget.
R.I.P Mikhail Gorbachev
Updated
Broadcaster and author John Simpson said he is “really sad” that the “decent” and “well-intentioned” former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has died.
In a Twitter post, Simpson, who interviewed Gorbachev, wrote: “Really sad that Mikhail Gorbachev has died: a decent, well-intentioned, principled man who tried to rescue the unrescuable.”
He added: “In private he was charming and surprisingly amusing. It wasn’t his fault things went so wrong.”
Vladimir Putin expresses condolences – Kremlin spokesman
The Russian president Vladimir Putin expresses his deepest condolences on the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, a Kremlin spokesman told the Interfax news agency.
Updated
The former farm worker with the rolling south Russian accent and distinctive port-wine birthmark on his head gave notice of his bold ambition soon after winning a Kremlin power struggle in 1985, at the age of 54, Reuters reports.
Television broadcasts showed him besieged by workers in factories and farms, allowing them to vent their frustrations with Soviet life and making the case for radical change.
It marked a dramatic break with the cabal of old men he succeeded – remote, intolerant of dissent, their chests groaning with medals, dogmatic to the grave. Three ailing Soviet leaders had died in the previous 2-1/2 years.
Gorbachev inherited a land of inefficient farms and decaying factories, a state-run economy he believed could be saved only by the open, honest criticism that had led so often in the past to prison or labour camp. It was a gamble. Many wished him ill.
With his clever, elegant wife Raisa at his side, Gorbachev at first enjoyed massive popular support.
“My policy was open and sincere, a policy aimed at using democracy and not spilling blood,” he told Reuters in 2009. “But this cost me very dear, I can tell you that.”
Updated
The front page of Wednesday’s Guardian.
Guardian front page, 31 August 2022: Hunger fears as food banks warn stock may run out, plus Mikhail Gorbachev dies aged 91 pic.twitter.com/SBJkypnojB
— The Guardian (@guardian) August 30, 2022
Gorbachev to be buried next to his wife Raisa in Moscow
“Mikhail Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease,” Interfax news agency cited Russia’s Central Clinical Hospital as saying in a statement.
Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass news agency, citing a source familiar with the family’s wishes.
Updated
'His commitment to reform changed the world' – Micheál Martin
Micheál Martin, the taoiseach of Ireland, has paid tribute.
Saddened to hear of the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev.
— Micheál Martin (@MichealMartinTD) August 30, 2022
His sense of history, and commitment to openness, reform, and building bridges with the West, changed the world.
Updated
Gorbachev spent much of the last two decades on the political periphery, intermittently calling for the Kremlin and the White House to mend ties as tensions soared to Cold War levels since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched an offensive in Ukraine earlier this year, AFP reports.
He spent the twilight years of his life in and out of hospital with increasingly fragile health and observed self-quarantine during the pandemic as a precaution against coronavirus.
“Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a serious and long illness,” the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said, quoted by the Interfax, TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies.
The former leader of the Lib Dems, Tim Farron, has posted a tribute on Twitter:
As a teenager in the 80s, living under the shadow of the bomb, Gorbachev gave us tangible hope that lifted that shadow. He also showed us that it’s possible to have strong ideological convictions and still to treat those with whom you disagree like humans and equals.
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) August 30, 2022
Updated
Tom Tugendhat, chair of the foreign affairs committee in the UK, has tweeted:
Mikhail Gorbachev’s reported death, according to Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital, is a reminder of how far Russia has fallen. From a powerful, if tyrannical state to now the playpen of gangsters and war criminals.
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) August 30, 2022
Updated
When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, Gorbachev refrained from using force unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Reuters reports.
But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion.
On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, aged just 54, he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spun out of control.
His policy of “glasnost” - free speech - allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state, but also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and elsewhere.
After visiting Gorbachev in hospital in June, liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg told the armed forces news outlet Zvezda: “He gave us all freedom - but we don’t know what to do with it.”
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies, aged 91
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who ended the cold war, has died aged 91.
The last president before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany.
Updated
